Expanding the NCAA Tournament?
 

There's been discussion by some in the media that the NCAA Tournament should be expanded.

Bob Knight suggested it should be expanded to 128 teams.

Why?

At this point in time, a 16 seed has never beaten a 1 seed, and if IRCC, the lowest seed to win the tournament is 11.

What would be the point of expanding?

It would be smarter to contract it back to a 48 yeam field.

it would be smart to expand it to make more money

I think expanding the tournament is the stupidest thing ever. I know everybody loves the tournament and the crapshoot it is but it kind of takes away what you do in the regular season. They need a nice blend between college football and the big dance as it is right now. My suggestion is have a committee at the end of the year put together the top 16 teams. Instead of one game and you are out, they should do it best out of 3. One game is just reeruned. A team can just get hot from three and beat a good team.

If it was in format I described KU would of won about three national championships in the last 20 years instead of one. Suprisingly though the last three years one of the best teams has one it, but expect that to change soon.

Yeah.

But from a competitive point of view, any expansion would be ridiculous.

64 is plenty, thank you. I'd say it was too many, if it weren't for the fact that the first couple of days of the tourney are so entertaining.

But no... expanding from here would be silly.

I like Knight's idea, but I think that making all 15 and 16 seeds a play-in-game might be worth it.

Well hell, why don't we just let every team in?

The NIT has its purpose. Put it back to 64. Winning a Tuesday game so you can get slaughtered a few days later is asinine.

Hence why I suggest making the lower seeds a play-in game if there should be any expansion. As of now, you get the talking heads and coaches bitching when the committee doesn't let them in the tournament. Adding seven more play-in games gives teams that might get snubbed a chance to prove that they belonged.. Instead of the NIT or the CBI.. Heh.

And my point is that 16 seeds have never advanced, so why the hell should we even add any teams?

The play in game is a joke.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

I'm all for dropping an at-large bid and just opening a spot for the two play-in teams. People would complain about the big conferences losing an at-large bid... these 11 and 12 seeds probably aren't winning the whole thing anyway.

At least you're rewarding the teams who actually won their conference, which I like, and you'll still get your first round upsets from time to time. There are two things we usually like about the tourney... watching the small schools earn their one shot to take on the big boys in the 1st round... and then beyond that, watching the conference leaders like UNC, Kansas, UCLA etc meet in the later rounds. Not sitting here figuring out a bunch of average teams in major conferences that you can barely tell apart.

get 8 possible 16 seeds and let them all play a game for a chance to play the number 1 team.

Nope. 1985 Villanova Wildcats (#8) was the lowest seed to win. This was such an outlier, that a #7 seed has never even made it to the championship game.